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Crisis-hit football club Portsmouth FC today announced that it would be handing Championship debuts to four new players this Saturday, recruited to complete unpaid work experience under the government’s controversial Right To Work scheme for the long-term unemployed.

Michael Carlisle (22) was a trainee baker in Greggs before he was dismissed in 2010 and had been reluctant to find work since. After being convinced of the benefits of work experience during a discussion about the impending loss of his JSA, Mr Carlisle was posted at the club’s headquarters at Fratton Park, where his duties included cutting oranges into four and waxing the Bentley of goalkeeper Jamie Ashdown.

Carlisle said yesterday ‘The Gaffer came in sat me and a few of the work experience lads down and told us we’d be starting against City on Saturday. I thought he was joking but then he handed me the number 26 shirt with the name ‘Ben Haim’ crossed out and ‘the work experience bloke’ written above it in marker pen.’